Interrogating Disability in India

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction: Interrogating Disability in India

   • Nandini Ghosh

   Pages 1-21

3. The Models Approach in Disability Scholarship: An Assessment of Its Failings

   • Shilpaa Anand

   Pages 23-38

4. Diversity at Workplace and in Education

   • Tanmoy Bhattacharya

   Pages 39-64

5. Right to Care, Home and Family: Ethics of Responsibility Towards Persons with Disability

   • Rukmini Sen

   Pages 65-75

6. Living Arrangement and Capability Deprivation of the Disabled in India

   • Achin Chakraborty, Subrata Mukherjee

   Pages 77-96

7. The Right to Be Different: Autism and Advocacy in Urban India

   • Shubhangi Vaidya

   Pages 97-110

8. Power and Leveraging in a Disability Context

   • Madhura Nagchoudhuri, Srilatha Juvva

   Pages 111-126

9. Negotiating Femininity: Lived Experiences of Women with Locomotor Disabilities in Bengal

   • Nandini Ghosh

   Pages 127-144

10. Women and Men at Work: Livelihood Experiences of Persons with Disabilities (PwD) in West Bengal

    • Ipsita Sapra

    Pages 145-165

11. The Disability Rights Movement in India: Its Origin, Methods of Advocacy, Issues and Trends

    • Jagdish Chander

    Pages 167-182

12. Disabled People’s Organizations in India: Assertions and Angsts

    • Nandini Ghosh

    Pages 183-198

This book discusses the multifaceted concept of disability in the context of India. Through analyses of theoretical propositions of disability in South Asia and empirical explorations of the lives of persons with disabilities in India, this book not only brings to the forefront a hitherto unexplored realm in academic discourse, but also bridges the gap between theory and lived reality, and between policy and practice. Thus, it is an important addition to the field of development studies in South Asia. The papers herein represent multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives from architects, lawyers, sociologists, political scientists, historians, economists and linguists to social work practitioners from the grassroots level. This range of insights from different disciplines allows for the exploration of a wide range of issues around disability and the lives of disabled people, moving from theoretical assumptions to exploring structural and infrastructural barriers, to problematizing different aspects of the lives of disabled people, and from objective realms to more subjective domains. Along with students and researchers of disability studies, this book is of interest to a diverse readership encompassing the social sciences, mental health, and development studies.

• Disability in the workplace
• Disability rights in India
• Gender and disability in India
• Indian law and disability
• disability and citizenship
• disability and right to education
• discourse of disability in South Asia
• life experiences of people with disabilities
• living arrangements for the disabled
• notion of personhood and disability
• organizations for people with disabilities
• social model of disability
• theoretical explorations of disability

“Interrogating Disability in India: Theory and Practice is a welcome addition to the emerging field of disability studies, especially disability rights and activism, in India. … this collection is still a useful resource for academics and researchers engaging with emerging scholarship in disability studies in the Indian context.” (Shubhangi G. Mehrotra, H-Net Reviews, h-net.org, August, 2018)

• Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, India

  Nandini Ghosh

Nandini Ghosh is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Presidency College Kolkata, a Master’s degree from the University of Calcutta, and a PhD from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her areas of interest are qualitative research methodology, sociology of gender, marginalization and social exclusion and social movements. She has co-edited a book titled Pratyaha Everyday Lifeworlds: Dilemmas, Contestations and Negotiations (Primus 2015). Her other publications include ‘Bhalo Meye: Cultural Construction of Gender and Disability in Bengal’, in Renu Adlakha (ed.), Disability Studies in India: Global Discourses, Local Realities (Routledge India, 2013) and ‘Sites of oppression: Dominant ideologies and women with disabilities in India’, in Tom Shakespeare (ed.), The Disability Research Reader: New Voices (Routledge UK, 2015).

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